Chapter 43: A Changed Future!

Inside the Blazing Sun Martial Arts Hall, hearing the Master's scolding, Yuan Dang couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Taking the opportunity to step down from the awkward situation, he fixed a pitiful gaze on Fang Can. His meaning was obvious: he was silently begging Fang Can not to pay him excessive attention lest he draw more of the Master's wrath.

Fang Can clicked his tongue in boredom. Seeing the disciple's reaction, he lost all interest in finding out more.

Watching the group of people patiently trying to comprehend the state, Fang Can sat lazily on the master chair, using his mental phase to oppress them.

Because this was not a life-or-death battle requiring large-scale output, and coupled with the fact that Fang Can could regenerate his health by basking in the sun, a relative balance was maintained between his consumption and output.

Driven by sheer boredom, Fang Can decided to make use of this time to practice that manual known as the "Golden Body of the Subduing Tiger and Taming Dragon."

According to the technique's description, this was a method that caused the epidermis to vibrate continuously, generating an invisible qi barrier over the skin.

When practiced to a profound realm, the skin would quiver slightly without a single moment of rest.

At that stage, even if one were hacked by swords and axes, the blows would be violently deflected by the intensely resilient epidermis. It could be called a top-tier method for blood-qi martial artists before stepping onto the Heavenly Ascent Path, and it could be activated even without internal energy.

As for blood-qi martial artists, although the cultivation system of this world was called martial arts, due to the mechanic where everyone’s wishes could manifest, practically anything under the sun existed here.

Geomagnetic powers, flesh shackles, divine domains, battle qi, magic, Taoist sorcery, Buddhist power, karmic merit, poetry and painting—almost every imaginable system was present.

Heaven knew what kind of wishes those people might make or what cultivation techniques would manifest!

However, because martial artists could only store and release energy within their bodies after crossing the Heavenly Ascent Path, high-tier late-game classes like archmages, true-qi martial artists, the poetry school, and Taoists possessed rather weak combat capabilities during the Mortal-Shedding Body stage.

Martial artists who lacked absolute confidence in successfully crossing the Heavenly Ascent Path mostly chose the blood-qi martial arts or battle-qi systems, steadily training their physical prowess and then searching for the possibility of making that ultimate leap.

Therefore, prior to the Mortal-Shedding Body stage, stat-heavy builds were somewhat more popular.

Mechanism-heavy builds required late-game development to shine, and ninety percent of martial artists chose the path of pure stats, given that few had the confidence to survive until the late game.

Leaning back slowly onto the master chair, Fang Can released his mental phase while simultaneously making his skin begin to vibrate incessantly, imitating the techniques described in the manual to temper his epidermis.

As everyone knew, human skin could not move freely.

But this was a subjective, mind-over-matter martial world! As long as your sincerity was sufficient and your realm was high enough, never mind minor human anatomical structures—even the laws of the universe could be altered.

Secretly driving his flesh and blood with his own blood-qi, Fang Can actually managed to make the skin on his fingers vibrate minutely. However, the frequency of this vibration was extremely slow, at only about one or two times per second, and the amplitude of the shaking was merely one micrometer.

According to the manual's requirements, to achieve a passing grade, one's epidermis had to reach a vibration frequency of at least eighty-one times per breath.

Feeling his skin rhythmically twitching, Fang Can's thoughts began to wander. He figured that if he practiced this to the ultimate extreme and managed tens of thousands of vibrations per second, it seemed it could turn a human body into a living high-frequency vibrator.

Furthermore, why stop at just vibrating the epidermis? If he went deeper into the cells, making tens of trillions of cells throughout the entire body vibrate at high frequency simultaneously, wouldn't that just be magnetic field rotation?

Yet, following this thought, when he looked at the time required to materialize it, Fang Can felt that maybe it wasn't completely unfeasible.

He was also quite curious about what kind of effect would be produced if he combined cellular vibration with the deep-level Great Sun Undying Demonic Body.

Sitting crosswise on the master chair, Fang Can practiced the technique bit by bit.

After all, wanting to modify a technique meant he had to thoroughly understand it first, and right now, although he wasn't taking any pills, thanks to the triple aptitude multiplier active since last night, his cultivation progressed smoothly and intuitively.

In the span of just a single stick of incense, Fang Can managed to let the vibration spread to his limbs and arms, though the frequency remained at one or two times per second.

Even so, with just another month of hard training, he could bring his entire body—including his groin, hair tips, eye membranes, and fingernails—into a high-frequency vibration mode of eighty-one times per second.

'Why do I feel like I'm training my body to become a sex toy?' Fang Can thought, mocking himself inwardly. When that time came, with eighty-one high-frequency vibrations per second, even legendary lovers would have to concede defeat.

As time gradually passed, after continuously releasing his mental phase for half an hour, Fang Can felt it was about enough and abruptly withdrew his mental phase. The effect was immediate, akin to poking a hornet's nest.

"Please, Lord Fang, give me just a little more! I still want to keep experiencing it!"

"My lord, release your mental phase once more! I'll do anything, I'm begging you!"

"My lord, your mental phase is too pure! Just one more time, please, just one more time!"

...

Looking at the martial artists before him who looked like drug addicts experiencing withdrawal, Fang Can was somewhat speechless.

Yet these martial artists cared nothing for pride; such an opportunity—where a martial artist with a mental phase was so generous as to let them comprehend it at will—was practically impossible to encounter in a lifetime, and it offered immeasurable benefits to their martial arts journey.

Forget about pleading; they would gladly kowtow or even eat filth if asked.

Even Ye Yonglie at this moment grabbed Fang Can's arm, tears streaming down his face as he recounted his plight:

"This old man has lived in vain for fifty-six years, having only crossed six barriers of the mystic gate. Every single day, I have practiced diligently and bitterly for twelve hours, barely managing to keep my blood-qi from declining."

"Yet my body grows older by the day. If I fail to awaken a mental phase before turning sixty, I fear I will never be able to advance another step in this lifetime."

"This old man possesses mediocre aptitude, having trained painstakingly in martial arts for over thirty years, wasting dozens of springs and autumns. In terms of diligence, I truly deserve to have a mental phase born within me. I only ask that young friend grant my request. If I can awaken a mental phase, this old man could die with no regrets."

By the end, Ye Yonglie's face was covered in tears and snot as he desperately clutched the lapels of Fang Can's robe. He looked nothing like the master of a martial arts hall, resembling instead a middle-aged man consumed by an unshakable obsession.

'Hmph, Master is senile indeed. Weeping and wailing like that—what an absolute disgrace.'

Yuan Dang stood to the side, watching coldly, having entirely forgotten that his own past-life self had been even more unseemly than the hall master.

Had it not been for the "Techniques for Everyone" published by Fang Can, he wouldn't even have had the aptitude to cross the Heavenly Ascent Path.

'Next, Fang Can should refuse and leave. Then, the new Heavenly Secrets Tower rankings will be released, and my furious Master will immediately report Fang Can's situation to the Tiger Fiend Sect, prompting them to issue a wanted bounty in advance.'

'Amidst the pursuit of the entire world, Fang Can will lose an arm, a leg, and both eyes, pushed almost to a desperate end. Yet, in a mere nineteen days, he will break through nine consecutive mystic gate barriers and step onto the Heavenly Ascent Path.'

'Then, sinking into madness, he will slaughter tens of millions of living beings, including the martial arts hall, ultimately leading to the destruction of the Great Yan Kingdom...'

'Only a few people, including myself and Senior Sister, will miraculously escape with our lives because we were out. To seek revenge, we will train bitterly in martial arts, but we will only be able to watch him climb higher and higher, until Senior Sister is carried off.'

Thinking up to this point, Yuan Dang felt a growing sense of dread. This Fang Can was utterly terrifying; he was invincible at the moment and could not be fought head-on. Matters must be plotted slowly over time.

Having undergone the recent shock, lacking absolute certainty, he was not prepared to alter history. Therefore, he simply watched coldly, waiting for Fang Can's impending refusal of his master.

'I'm sorry, Master. This fellow Fang Can is odious; this disciple will not be able to attend to your final days.' Yuan Dang sighed inwardly, but then he suddenly heard...

"Uh, alright." Fang Can scratched his head and smiled, "Since I don't have much going on recently anyway, I'll stay and live here for a few days."

As these words fell, Yuan Dang felt as though a thunderbolt had struck him directly from the crown of his head, leaving him standing frozen in place like a wooden chicken.